Repertoire

Performers

Internationally-renowned mezzo-soprano Ann Murray DBE and Artistic Director William Vann give the opening recital of the London English Song Festival 2014. They are joined on stage by tenor Alessandro Fisher, Oxford Lieder Young Artist award-winner, in a programme of songs by Barber, Britten, Haydn, Head, Purcell and Flanders & Swann for an unforgettable evening, performed by one of the world’s finest recitalists alongside one of its up-and-coming young stars.

NB. Please note venue.

The London English Song Festival was set up in 2011 under the direction of multiple award-winning pianist William Vann to promote and celebrate the performance and knowledge of the wide and varied repertoire of English Song in London and throughout the U.K. This year, the LESF will be held between 5 and 11 June in the historic and musically important churches of St James’s, Piccadilly and St George’s, Hanover Square, and we are thrilled that the festival will be opened on 5 June by Ann Murray giving a recital with Artistic Director, William Vann, in St James’s. On 6 June we celebrate the sixtieth birthday of Professor Judith Weir CBE, one of the country’s finest song-writing composers, featuring exciting young artists Katie Bray and Johnny Herford with a pre-concert talk given by the composer. A third recital on 10 June commemorates the one-hundredth anniversary of the start of the First World War given by Alexander Sprague and Kathleen Ferrier prizewinner Gareth John, including the academic insights of Professor Jeremy Dibble beforehand. The 2014 programme concludes on 11 June with tenor Allan Clayton and the Navarra Quartet performing a sumptuous array of songs for tenor, string quartet and piano.

The LESF is grateful to its sponsors, who include the Kathleen Ferrier Society, the Lennox Berkeley Society and the Association of English Singers and Speakers, and to Sir Thomas Allen and Malcolm Martineau for their support and patronage.

The Great War affected the lives of so many across the world: art and artists were never the same again. The composer and head of the Royal College of Music Hubert Parry, who died in the Spanish 'Flu...

The combination of tenor and string quartet has proved a productive source of inspiration for countless composers of English song and tonight Allan Clayton, one of England's finest young singers, the...